Canada’s Parliament debating the Nordic/Swedish model of criminalizing the purchase of sexual services

Bill C-36: Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to, among other things,

(a) create an offence that prohibits purchasing sexual services or communicating in any place for that purpose;

(b) create an offence that prohibits receiving a material benefit that derived from the commission of an offence referred to in paragraph (a);

(c) create an offence that prohibits the advertisement of sexual services offered for sale and to authorize the courts to order the seizure of materials containing such advertisements and their removal from the Internet;

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As you can see, Canada's parliament is debating whether to vote into law a bill based on the Swedish model of criminalizing the purchase of sexual services.

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/legalizing-prostitution-sexual-rights-by-sarah-hawkes-and-kent-buse-2014-10

For those who are uncertain about what might constitute a sexual service, the term is helpfully defined by Canada’s Department of Justice to include lap-dancing, but not stripping or “acts related to the production of pornography.

And yet, there are many things wrong with the Swedish model:

• Forbes: "Swedish Model is that it is based on faulty research"
• National Post: Criminalizing johns endangers sex workers, B.C. study says
• Time: Making the purchase of sex a crime strips women of agency and autonomy

As I have mentioned before, ultimately prostitution should be legalized, not for any sort of social good it would do, but for the sole reason that it should be none of the government's business what consenting adults do with each other as long as no one is getting physically hurt.

Trafficking is an issue in prostitution, but also is an issue in many other industries. They should focus on the trafficking aspect and not prostitution itself.

Since the primary purchasers of sexual services are men, the Swedish model simply serve to further criminalize male activities and put more men behind bars. Thisis not surprising given Sweden's status as "The Saudi Arabia of Feminism".

Hopefully Canada will do the right thing and keep prostitution legal and not create a new class of criminals, guilty of a victimless crime, that will require more unproductive regulatory overhead in terms of more police enforcement, court time, lawyers and judges, prison space, and new taxes to fund all of this.